NB: My apologies to those who’ve been waiting three years for this “Part Two.” As many of you know, since the posting of my “Illuminati Conspiracy Part One: Exegesis on the Available Evidence” in August 2005, I have been hard at work on a book about the Bavarian Illuminati. So, necessarily, I had to put on hold the planned three part series. As the book is finished and scheduled for a November 2008 release, I am free to proceed. (Part two is not what I had originally planned on writing, but nonetheless, it is original and distinct from the book.) – TM

Orientation: The Bavarian Illuminati were the antagonists of the Jesuits, and vice versa

I have chosen to critique parts of | this webpage | as a means to inform the reader on certain facts essential to a proper understanding of the 18th Century Bavarian Order of Illuminati. The other reason is this: a particularly rabid and extremely annoying “Jesuits-rule-the-world” theorist who spams many YahooGroups (always in the customary all-caps shouting mode), had deigned this “Religious Counterfeits” webpage as the proper authority – I am not sure why – on the following theories: 1) that Adam Weishaupt was a Jesuit – not just Jesuit-trained, but a Jesuit priest; and 2) that the Illuminati, therefore, are synonymous with the Jesuits and, in fact, the two are the same (that is, the former was merely the organ of the latter, and the proof of said assertion is the fact that Weishaupt was supposedly a Jesuit himself). To someone who has even a modicum of familiarity with the 18th-Century European Enlightenment, this is indeed a preposterous claim; it’s based upon a falsehood – Weishaupt being a Jesuit – and displays ignorance of the history of the period to which we speak.

What follows is a quote/rebuttal format which will hopefully put to rest certain erroneous assertions being claimed by the Jesuits=Illuminati theorists.

Quote: There have always been Occultists who practiced the process of Illumination, but the term “Illuminati” was used first in the 15th Century by enthusiasts in the Occult Arts, signifying those who claimed to possess “light” directly communicated from some higher source, through mysticism.

The first occurrence of “Illuminati” was not in the 15th century. “Illuminati” has been used by followers of Mani, or Manes (Manichaeism; the apostles of light) – they called him the supreme illuminator. The Virgin Mary, too, was given the appellation “Maria Illuminatrix” and the “illuminated/illuminator.” Jewish Kabbalists were called Illuminati. And lest the reader get the impression it is only used in the occult or by the Roman Catholic Church, be reminded that in Calvin’s Institutes, the theologian mentionstwenty times the word Illuminati and Illuminatus, four times(see Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority (Vol. IV), Good News Publishers, 1999, p. 290; the statistical calculation of the words was compiled by the first editor of the magazine Christianity Today, Carl. F. H. Henry, and presented at the above-cited page, along with other keywords in Calvin’s Latin texts such as “Illuminated” and “Illuminate.”)

Benito Mussolini said, “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

This model of economic fascism was adopted by Germany and Italy in the 1930s. And, I submit to you that such a marriage between the state and corporate power has taken place here in the United States.

Does this sound like a baseless contention? Allow me to substantiate it with history.

A form of Corporatism began to infect our constitutional republic in the 1930s. It propagated itself under the euphemistic appellation of “planned capitalism” and was hailed as a desirable inevitability. In 1936, Lawrence Dennis published The Coming American Fascism, a polemic contending that America’s adoption of stringent public regulation and the enshrinement of corporate power would invigorate “national spirit.” However, Dennis believed that economic fascism had a major obstacle to overcome.

Dennis wrote, “It cannot be repeated too often that what prevents adequate public regulation is liberal norms of law or constitutional guarantees of private rights.”

Dennis proffered a chronocentric portrait of America’s traditional republican model of government, caricaturing it as an outmoded “18th-century Americanism” that would eventually be supplanted by “enterprises of public welfare and social control” (i.e., economic fascism).

The old adage opines, “Only two things are certain in life: death and taxes.”

While the parameters governing death seem fairly well-defined, taxes are somewhat more ambiguous. Our system of taxation is labyrinthine and confusing, which is precisely the way that the welfare statist likes it. Americans are already busy enough dealing with the complexities of their daily lives and do not have the time to familiarize themselves with all of the vagaries of an increasingly socialistic tax system. Amid the cacophony of quotidian pressures, important details invariably elude public attention.

The inflation tax is one of the most significant cases in point. Haven’t heard of it? If so, don’t be too hard on yourself. Most Americans don’t even realize that an inflation tax exists.

With the presidential elections steadily approaching, a question is being asked with increasing frequency: Who are you voting for? Personally, this questions aggravates me. Why? Because it is framed within a distinctly Hegelian framework. This framework consists of the confining dialectics of left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative, and, of course, Democrat vs. Republican. The latter of these dialectics is, for me, the most frustrating. Why? Because there’s no real difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Whenever the religious adherent of partisan affiliations attempts to “convert” me to their creed, I direct him or her to a quote from an obscure book entitled Tragedy and Hope. In this book, Georgetown University Professor Carroll Quigley writes, “The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea. Instead the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy…It should be able to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which … will still pursue with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.”

In truth, the purpose of a two party system is the maintenance of a political cartel. Within such a framework, viable alternatives are overlooked and the same logically bankrupt status quo remains enshrined. To qualify this contention, I will briefly examine one major issue that occupies the mind of the voter: the war. To be sure, this is not the only point of convergence for the Democrats and Republicans, but it is one of the most transparently fraudulent dichotomies on the political landscape. The dominant perception holds that Republicans are “hawks” while Democrats are “doves.” However, history does not bear out this dualistic portrait.

Dominionism: Marrying Christianity to the Kosmos

In John 18:33, Pilate asked Jesus, “Art thou the King of the Jews?” In John 18:36, Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not of this world.” The original Greek word for “world” is kosmos, which connotes an arrangement, system, order, or government. Jesus was not expressing derision for the physical world, but with the usurious political systems that had come to dominate it. Some Christians have construed this response as a rationale for indolence and have embraced an apathetic brand of political abdication theology. However, Christian proponents of political abdication fail to consider the transliteration of kosmos and the historical background against which the term was invoked. Jesus was not condemning political activism. Instead, He was condemning the world’s political systems of that time, specifically the oligarchical model of the Roman Empire and its surrogate, the theocracy of the Pharisees.

That being said, there is another variety of so-called “Christians” that constitutes an equally extreme polar opponent to abdication theologians. This other polar extreme is known as “Dominionism.” While abdication theologians construe the Scriptures as a rationale for complete political abdication, Dominionists distort Genesis 1:28 to legitimize a purely political agenda. Dominionists totally politicize the Gospel, thus marrying Christianity to secular institutions. Once it is wedded to secularism, Christianity adopts the same anthropocentric premises of secularism. One of the anthropocentric premises that tend to pervade secularized Christianity is the notion that man must save himself. This was a core contention of communism, fascism, and other forms of anti-theistic sociopolitical Utopianism. In the context of Dominionism, this contention is given a marginally theistic interpretation: Man fully embodies and facilitates the march of God on earth. However, there is very little difference between the anti-theistic and theistic iterations of this contention. In both instances, the adherent’s gaze is firmly fixed on the ontological confines of this world.

As is the case with all Hegelian dialectics, the dialectic extremes of abdication theology and Dominionist theology produce the same outcome: totalitarianism. The abdication theologian surrenders to totalitarianism, whereas the Dominionist actively creates totalitarianism. Basically, Dominionism is a cult of neo-Gnostic jihadists committed to goals that almost mirror the objectives of earlier sociopolitical Utopians. Chris Hedges describes Dominionism as follows:

What the disparate sects of this movement, known as Dominionism, share is an obsession with political power. A decades-long refusal to engage in politics at all following the Scopes trial has been replaced by a call for Christian “dominion” over the nation and, eventually, over the earth itself. Dominionists preach that Jesus has called them to build the kingdom of God in the here and now, whereas previously it was thought we would have to wait for it. America becomes, in this militant biblicism, an agent of God, and all political and intellectual opponents of America’s Christian leaders are viewed, quite simply, as agents of Satan. (No pagination)

There is a crucial distinction to be made between using the Scriptures as a compass for making decisions within the political system and using the Scriptures as a rationale for co-opting and controlling the political system. In Vengeance is Ours: The Church in Dominion, Albert Dager synopsizes the three basic tenets upon which this militarized form of Christianity is premised:

1) Satan usurped man’s dominion over the earth through the temptation of Adam and Eve; 2) The Church is God’s instrument to take dominion back from Satan; 3) Jesus cannot or will not return until the Church has taken dominion by gaining control of the earth’s governmental and social institutions. (87)

Stone

When the Spitzer scandal broke out, the first person this author thought to call was retired New York Police Detective James “Jim” Rothstein. Jim is a legend. As a cop, Jim took on organized pedophile rings, arrested Watergate burglar and CIA operative Frank Sturgis, and testified before the New York State Select Committee on Crime. Jim knows all about sexual blackmail operations, which he refers to as “human compromise” (Rothstein, no pagination). To Jim, the Spitzer scandal was a perfect example of “human compromise” (ibid). “It’s like déjà vu,” said Rothstein (ibid). And to Rothstein, GOP operative Roger Stone was the key to the compromising of Spitzer (ibid).

“Watch for this guy Stone,” Jim said. “I saw him in an interview about Spitzer a few days ago and thought I recognized him. I looked back at my old investigations and remembered that he was part of Roy Cohn’s whole thing.” (ibid)

Jim was referring to Roy Cohn’s sexual blackmail operation. According to Jim, this operation was conducted “under the guise of fighting communism” (ibid). During his time as a police detective, Rothstein had an opportunity to sit down with infamous McCarthy committee counsel Roy Cohn (ibid). Cohn admitted to Rothstein that he was part of a rather elaborate sexual blackmail operation that compromised politicians with child prostitutes (ibid). Roger Stone began working with Cohn when he was the northeast chairman of Reagan’s 1980 campaign (Labash, no pagination). Cohn and Stone had began building an alliance a year earlier when Cohn introduced Stone to mobster Fat Tony Salerno at Cohn’s Manhattan townhouse (ibid). According to the Weekly Standard’s Matt Labash, “Stone loved Cohn” (ibid). Stone said of Cohn: “He didn’t give a [expletive removed] what people thought, as long as he was able to wield power. He worked the gossip columnists in [New York] like an organ” (ibid).

It’s a move that is causing fear among the left in Mexico. Mexican president Felipe Calderon intends to present an energy reform bill to the Mexican congress that would allow private investment in Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil monopoly (Grillo, no pagination). Calderon claims foreign oil companies can save Pemex from underinvestment and mismanagement by increasing Mexico’s technological and operational capacity, thus allowing the nation to tap its deep-water reserves. According to Calderon, if foreigners are not brought in, Mexico will not be able to tap its deep-water reserves and the nation will be importing petroleum in nine years. Critics of Calderon’s plan include 2006 presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Rep. Alejandro Sanchez of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party. Obrador and Sanchez fear foreign investment will lead to a predatory form of privatization and Mexicans will lose control of their own oil industry. But the dangers related to foreign incursions into Mexico’s oil industry go deeper than the debate between proponents of nationalization and privatization. The oil industry and the intelligence community have always gone hand in hand. Pemex is certainly no exception.

Author’s note: The following is excerpted from the forthcoming book, Invoking the Beyond, which I am co-authoring with Paul David Collins.

As all of humanity’s treasured metaphysical propositions (e.g., the soul, the noumenal realm, God, etc.) swiftly vanished behind the barrier that Immanuel Kant arbitrarily erected between noumenon and phenomenon, there was a corresponding tendency among the critics of traditional theistic outlooks to ascribe noumenal characteristics to the phenomenal world. One case in point was, of course, the biologicized pantheism of Darwinism. Ironically, the premises for this latest iteration of pantheism were established by Spinoza, a theoretician of whom Kant was deeply critical. Nevertheless, the Kantian Rift engendered epistemic incertitude concerning noumenon, thereby rendering ostensibly tenable the subsequent incorporation of noumenal qualities into the conceptualization of a self-sufficient immanent order. Essentially, Spinoza suffused the phenomenal world with divinity, which is a categorically noumenal state of being. Another case in point was Georg Hegel, who advanced the notion of a Weltgeist that was directing “an ongoing developmental (evolutionary) process in nature, including humanity” (Taylor 381-82). This process was historically expressed as a “dialectical struggle between positive and negative entities,” which invariably resulted in a “harmonious synthesis” (381-82). Naturally, such a Manichean process would entail a substantial amount of violence and bloodshed. Not surprisingly, Darwinism “gave credence to the Hegelian notion that human culture had ascended from brutal beginnings” (386). To be sure, there are some disparities between a Spinoza and a Hegel, but a common penchant among such thinkers is a propensity to conflate noumenal attributes (e.g., eternality, infinitude, omnipotence, etc.) with objects of phenomenal experience (e.g., nature, the material cosmos, genetics, biology, etc.).

The Kunz Murder

Some crime scenes are so grisly and gruesome that they beggar description. One such scene was discovered on March 4th, 1998 by a young teacher at the residence of Father Alfred Kunz (Kennedy 150). Father Kunz was discovered face down in a pool of his own blood with his throat cut (150). While the culprit was never found, there is a body of evidence that suggests Satanism was involved in the murder. A mutilated calf was discovered on a farm fifteen minutes away from Kunz’s dead body (150-151). The calf had its throat slit and its blood drained into a milk pail (151). The calf’s genitals had also been cut off (151). Cult experts consider calf mutilations to be “the calling card or ‘signature’ of Satanists” (151). Kunz’s slit throat was also significant. The oaths of many secret societies include throat slicing as a penalty for revealing a group’s closest secrets (152-53). Was Kunz exposing the operations of a cult? Kunz’s friend and associate, former Vatican insider Malachi Martin certainly thought so. Six weeks after Kunz’s murder, Martin appeared on a radio show claiming to have inside information that Kunz’s murder was carried out by Luciferians (153). Luciferians are not your garden variety devil worshippers, but they are devil worshippers nonetheless.

Kunz’s murder came shortly after he made it known that the format of his hour-long radio show called Catholic Family Hour was going to be modified (151). Malachi Martin, a former Vatican insider and expert on deviant sex rings within the Catholic Church, had become a regular guest on the show (151). The night Kunz was murdered was the exact same night that Kunz’s friend, Father Charles Fiore, took over the Catholic Family Hour show (151). Fiore planned to begin exposing satanic pedophile rings within the Catholic Church (151-52). Fiore was in a perfect position to collect intelligence on deviant sex rings both inside and outside the Catholic Church because of his participation in the Council for National Policy (CNP). Fiore had been on the CNP’s Board of Governors in 1982, and had been a CNP participant in 1984 and 1988 (“Council for National Policy: Selected Member Biographies,” no pagination). Fiore had also been a member of fellow CNP participant Ed McAteer’s Religious Roundtable Council (no pagination).

Scientology is both immoral and socially obnoxious … It is dangerous because it is out to capture people, especially children and impressionable young people, and indoctrinate and brainwash them so that they become the unquestioning captives and tools of the cult …

The auditing – the processing – begins at an early age. […] In “The Second Dynamic” 1982 edition under the heading “Children’s Confessional Ages 6 – 12″ is a “processing check for use on children”. It is a very long and vigorous interrogation. […] I agree with Dr. Clark [an expert witness] that ‘Scientology training is training for slavery’.

This book, although rooted in fact, was part of a continuing attempt by the Church of Scientology to discredit professional psychology and psychiatry by any means possible. The book was published by the Delphian Foundation, a Scientology organization that runs a church school outside a small town in rural Oregon, and its sole purpose is to slander, by any means possible, modern psychology and anyone and everything associated with it.

While there was indeed a Wilhelm Wundt who was influential in the growth of experimental psychology, and while this new technology was backed financially as part of the Rockefeller family’s attempt to clear its name through public philanthropy, what underlies the thesis of the book is the implicit theory of conspiracy that has played such a large role in the growth of Scientology and in the activities of the group as a whole.

I would advise most strongly that the message of this book be taken with a grain of salt, as the book as written is not what it purports to be and its underlying purpose leads one on a different trajectory intellectually and factually than it might otherwise appear to do.